Ask HN: What agenda do you have for 1:1 meetings with your supervisor?

Then you should have their job :) I see what you are saying here, but it's a very fine balance and the potential downside is greater than the potential upside here so just be careful.

My boss and I create a Slack thread each week for 1:1 topics.

One thing to remember is that 1:1 time is YOUR time, not your boss's time. They can schedule a meeting with you any time for their topics, but 1:1s are always your chance to have face time alone with them.

It's up to you what to talk about, but as a manager, I don't need status updates. If I'm a good manager, then I already know what you're up to, so let's talk about something _you_ want to talk about. You don't need to inform me of your day-to-day work, unless that's what you want to talk about.

My boss and I talk about a lot of things, but rarely status updates on projects. The topics tend to revolve around organizational changes, obstacles that my team and I are running into, personnel issues, or company strategic/tactical considerations.

My 1:1 is also a great time to talk about career development. Every other 1:1 I ask my boss how I'm doing, and if he says "You're great", I push a little bit more on something I can improve. He usually comes up with _something_.

I know a lot of ICs feel it's rude or inappropriate to bring up raises or career direction, so I try to bring it up for them every other month or so. Things like "How do you like the direction of your role? Is there something else you'd like to work on? Have your career goals changed? Do you want to talk about that?"

I also take the time in 1:1s to get to know them on a personal level. One of my team members is having a baby in a few weeks, another one is competing in an Ironman in a few months, and a third is going through a divorce. These kinds of things don't directly apply to the job at hand, but it does have several benefits, such as letting them know that I care about them personally and giving me context that might explain aberrant behavior. Plus, it's just nice when someone asks about how you're doing, right?

Like I said at the beginning, I'll make a Slack thread with my boss. This week's looks something like this:

- performance plan

- pivot

- 's annual review is coming up, compensation adj?

- budget exploded, what happened?

- seems to struggle with . How can I help?

etc, etc.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

From a manager's perspective, what I think is a great 1:1 is two things:

1. Delegate up. If you have blockers that we haven't talked about already out of 1:1 cycle, bring that first so that we can figure out how to knock it down.

2. The MOST valuable thing is for you to educate me. When I was a manager, it was impossible to stay current on every technical topic I needed to know. The IC working with the tech every day learns that all naturally -- boil it down to the most important and tell me that. That is the information that I crave, and will also use to educate the next level up. (Oh, BTW, if your organization seems to be allergic to this kind of upward-flowing education flow, that is a Bad Sign(TM).)

Every meeting should start with:

1. What am I doing that I should continue?

2. What am I doing that I should stop doing?

3. What should I start doing

If manager is open, you can say same things about her.

More succinctly:

1. Start

2. Stop

3. Continue

I've had a manager take credit for my work, gaslight, and fire me when he was getting in trouble for underpreforming. I had no relationship with his bosses; I kept my nose down and did my work. I documented the craziness, but it happened so fast I could not defend myself. I learned to toot my horn some too. But really I should have left that department/company sooner. Yrmv. I don't think a good manager will take full credit for underlings work.